The present invention relates to an impact absorbing structure for a vehicle body and a related method, and, more particularly, to an impact absorbing structure for an engine attaching structure of a vehicle body and its related method.
An approach is made to provide an attaching structure, by which an engine is mounted to a vehicle body, that includes a total of three mount sites, i.e., right and left mount sites located on a pair of front side members, extending at right and left sides of the vehicle body along a fore and aft direction thereof, at front areas thereof to permit the engine to be mounted via engine mounts, and a lower mount site disposed on a sub frame lying below the vehicle body to permit the engine to be mounted thereon via an engine mount.
Such an attaching structure employing the total of three mount sites is particularly shown in FIG. 5 in a schematic perspective view. In the figure, directional terms X-, Y- and Z-directions refer to a longitudinal direction of the vehicle body, a leftward direction in a widthwise direction of the vehicle body and an upward direction of the vehicle body. Also, in the following description of the attaching structure, a typical right side structure of the vehicle body is mainly described for convenience in referring to the figures.
In FIG. 5, an engine mount bracket 11 is mounted on a front side member 2 that extends at the right side of the vehicle along the fore and aft direction thereof, and an engine mount 10 is fixed to the engine mount bracket 11. An engine, not shown, is coupled to the engine mount 10 to be mounted in an engine room 5.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-278116 or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-168624 discloses a attaching structure in which an engine is mounted in a vehicle body using a sum of three mount sites lying in right, left and lower areas.